A Jungian Perspective on Late Marriages: The Singapore Context

Muhammad Ashraf bin Minhaj

Much research has been done over the years on the subject of late marriages. Time, just a
partition in the sense where these articles both referenced here and glimpsed, picture an image of a
familiar trend in past societies and too in comparative observational studies. There is a certain
schema, a mental mind map or pattern that contrives itself upon human civilization, where
population numbers, growth, migration or globalization as is the phenomena now, are all
interconnected to a symbolic theme.

Population figures are important to the health of a society, thus it is no wonder marriage as
a context shares that responsibility, of which in particular where it seen commonly now in modern
society where late marriages is becoming the norm. The norm which the study associates with
Jungian Collective Unconscious (n.d.), regarded as the hub of unconscious experiences, where in
which lies the basis for the cultural and belief aspects of a shared society, be it a people or humanity,
where lies dormant are roles and base archetypes, delivered through generations. There are
numerable studies done on the factors, cause and effect of late marriages, through the years.

The Age of Enlightment as according Thorton (2001, 2005; also see, Melegh et al., 2012; van
de Kaa, 2010) brought a wave of new influences and ideas, of which “shaped the worldview of many
scholars, policy makers, and other elites in the west”. This comparable to the times of the Greek
Philosophers whom asserts their influences on the rest of the ancient world, history abiding. Even in
psychology with the various branches, psychoanalysis with where the past matters, behaviourism
with where experiences matters, humanism with where your choices matters, and so etcetera. The
times change but their roots are ingrained. The collective unconscious is as that, events, memories,
goals, fears of both a time and place of a people and humanity. The collective unconscious is not
simply a merger of all else individual unconsciousness, but of other smaller collective
unconsciousness separated by linear or leaped generations, but relative to other said
unconsciousness and collective unconsciousness.

Perhaps a more effective way of explaining this would be in the varied examples suggested.
In Pakistan, an analysis (Saleem et al., 2015) suggest the caste system, education of women, phobia
of idealism, and economic factor as being the main causes for late marriages. In Iran (Ghoroghi,
2015), suggest the duration of marriage a notable factor for quality of marriage. In Gansu, China (Lai
and Thorton, 2014) where developmental ideas affect both Muslim and Non-Muslim diasporas,
similar factors for cause were yielded such as gender egalitarianism and the perception of
developmental influences. In Japan (), the seniority wage system is crippling educated youths hence
late marriages and falling infertility rates. Similar findings in India, Southeast Asian countries (), and
not the very least America () where the more prominent figures are recorded.

Such is the state of the Collective Unconscious, that cultures and beliefs systems are going
through a mcdonaldization (Ritzer, 2011), a standardization of the norm.
References:

collective unconscious. (n.d.) American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
(2011). Retrieved October 23 2015 from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/collective+unconscious

Thornton, Arland, 2001. The developmental paradigm, reading history sideways, and family change.
Demography 38, 449–465.

Thornton, Arland, 2005. Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the
Developmental Paradigm on Family Life. University of Chicago Press.

Melegh, Attila, Thornton, Arland, Philipov, Dimiter, Young-DeMarco, Linda, 2012. Perceptions of
societal developmental hierarchies in Europe and beyond: a Bulgarian perspective. Eur. Sociol. Rev.

Saleem, H., Chaudhry, A., Jabbar, A., & Mishal, S. (2015). Late Marriages and Infertility. An
Anthropological Analysis on Health, 1(7), 246-250. Retrieved October 10, 2015, from
http://www.scribd.com/doc/273252211/Late-Marriages-and-Infertility-an-Anthropological-Analysis-
on-Health#scribd

Ghoroghi, S., Hassan, S., & Baba, M. (2015). Marital Adjustment and Duration of Marriage among
Postgraduate Iranian Students in Malaysia. International Education Studies IES, 8(2), 50-59.
doi:doi:10.5539/ies.v8n2p50

Lai, Q., Thornton, A. The making of family values: Developmental idealism in Gansu, China. Social Sci.
Res. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.09.012

Ritzer, G. (2011). The McDonaldization of Society, 6th Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.